Quotes: Head Coach Chip Kelly

COACH KELLY: I don't know if he'll go full. He'll be with the strength coaches today. We have three more days. We have Thursday, Friday, Saturday. But he's not full for practice today.

Saturday you thought he would be able to play.

COACH KELLY: Yeah, we thought he would be. I am not a doctor. I just listen to what they tell me, what they think he is going to be. I know today he's not full in practice.

Is there a number of days he needs to practice?

COACH KELLY: It's all done on an individual basis: What's the injury, where they are, how much of a game plan they can digest.

What is the safety situation if he can't go?

COACH KELLY: It would be Nate [Allen], Earl [Wolff] then we have Kurt [Coleman] and Colt [Anderson].

Can you talk a little bit about Earl? I know he's been progressing.

COACH KELLY: Yeah, I think he’s growing. Came in here as a rookie and is starting to play a little bit more as he got through the Chargers game, the Redskins game, and then the Chiefs game. There's an improvement as we've gone along. There's still a lot of work to be done, but we're happy with what direction he's heading in.

You have a young secondary. Peyton Manning is a Hall of Famer. You talked about having Tom Brady here. Do you worry about guys being in awe?

COACH KELLY: Yeah, I don't think our players are in awe. I think they just respect who they're playing against. Obviously you're playing against one of the all time greats. I don't get a feeling from our players that they're in awe and are going to back pedal and stare at him. I don't get that feeling from them.

They do respect him as a player, which we all do. Our coaching staff does. Our players do. Like I said the other day, he's one of the all time greats to play this game.

COACH KELLY: Depends how many snaps we're getting, how much time we have them out there. Again, we've had the question before about substitution. You got to take somebody out. I think DeSean [Jackson] is playing at a really high level right now. Jason Avant had a really good game for us the other night. Riley has done a really good job blocking on the perimeter, great red zone target for us.

You have to set the depth chart. When we set the depth chart, I tell our players they set it all the time. Right now our top three receivers are DeSean, Jason and Riley.

You've been playing a lot of 11 personnel. Teams have responded by playing nickel. You have a running back who is on a 2,100 yard pace against that. As long as teams continue to play nickel against that, is it likely you'll stay with 11 personnel?

COACH KELLY: It depends on who their nickels are and how they deploy those guys. It's been a favorable matchup for us in three games. I think we've had production on the offensive side of the ball. We've turned it over too much, had too many penalties on the offensive side of the ball. I think that's really where our execution from our standpoint has.

So far in the three games we played, yeah. But you don't know how everybody is going to deploy. Some team's nickel packages are very elaborate blitz packages, maybe you don't want to see them in the base. It's not a hard and fast rule, but we'll study it every week.

Jason Kelce’s snaps can get a little hot. What are some of the things you can do in practice to fix that?

COACH KELLY: Just the fundamentals, just like everything we work on every day. First drill we do every single day is center quarterback exchange. We talk about the center snap in every drill we're doing, whether it be the team periods or whether we are just doing a walkthrough.

I think it's a fundamental. Sometimes when you get so involved in schemes, you forget about the fundamentals. No different than the left tackle taking a proper set, making sure the five offensive linemen are up on the ball at the same time.

I think sometimes as the season goes along, you can lose sight of fundamentals. We try to make sure we don't do that.

Jason Peters, with his finger dislocation, has to get it taped up and that doesn't allow him to grab a guy's shoulder the way he wants to. You talked about how well he does that. Is he not as effective as a player right now?

COACH KELLY: I think any player that's limited somewhat with an injury is going to be not as effective as if he wasn't injured, so yes.

How much of a concern is Peters’ injury to you?

COACH KELLY: Are we going to bench Jason Peters? No. So, it's not that much of a concern. Still going to play with J. Still think he's one of the best tackles in this game. He's not exactly where he could be because he has a limitation with the hand. Not to a point where we're going to sit Jason down and put someone else in.

Do you need more help on that side?

COACH KELLY: No.

When you talk about Peyton Manning and how explosive their offense is, do you feel your offense can be just as productive, even more than what you've done so far and be up at that level?

COACH KELLY: It means absolutely nothing. All we need to do is [say] how well do we play on a weekly basis [and do] we score enough points to win a game. We don't compare ourselves to anybody else. At the end of the year, no one pats you on the back because your offense is rated at a certain level. That's got nothing to do with it.

Does our offense give us a chance to win the game this week? That's all we're concerned with.

When you signed Bradley Fletcher and Cary Williams in the off season, you mentioned their ability to press-man. Have you been have you been able to utilize them that way in the defense and do you feel it's something they've been able to perform at a high level so far?

COACH KELLY: Yeah, I think we've used them that way. It's like anything. I don't think you can do anything 100% of the time. You can't play press-man the entire game. You can't run the ball the entire game. You can't throw the ball the entire game. I think the ability that Cary and Fletch both give us is the versatility. Some guys can play only one style and then you're stuck. Again, you don't want to be pigeonholed that we can only play one way with a defensive back. I think those guys can play press, but can also play off.

When you blitz, is that when you go to press-man?

COACH KELLY: You don't have to blitz to play press-man.

How will you handle pads in practices?

COACH KELLY: The first three months of the season?

Because there's restrictions later on in the year.

COACH KELLY: Wednesdays we didn't use him during the short week because it was a short week. Really, coming off a Sunday game to a Thursday game, going into a Sunday game coming off a Monday game we didn't use him. Our plan is to use them on Wednesdays. Part of practice phase.

More tackling type drills?

COACH KELLY: They do tackling drills even when we're in shells from a defensive standpoint.

With Riley Cooper, you mentioned his blocking. How important is that to overall what he's doing out there? If he's not catching the ball, is he a good enough blocker to keep him on the field?

COACH KELLY: I'm confused with the question. I think it's important for every receiver to be able to block.

It's a strength of his. We talk about Damaris Johnson and Jeff Maehl, who are smaller. If Riley has a game where he's not catching the ball...

COACH KELLY: I haven't seen that, so you're dealing with hypotheticals. A game with someone that doesn't catch a ball well enough, we'd get him out of game.

Is his blocking enough to keep him out there?

COACH KELLY: He has one drop. A lot of it for receivers, are you getting open, getting off of jams. Riley is doing that. Depends on what we're throwing. I don't look at it that way. How many times are you throwing the ball and what is your production from that.

If he's a guy that is consistently dropping the ball, that's when you start talking about putting another guy in there.

When you were at Oregon, did anybody play no huddle against you?

COACH KELLY: I think everybody in college football plays no huddle. We saw it a ton. A lot of teams. We played Auburn in the national championship game. Gus [Malzahn] does a great job with it. There's a lot of people that have really gone to it. Rich Rodriguez ran it at Arizona. We saw Todd Graham run it at Arizona State. Mike Leach runs it. There's a lot of it. It's very prevalent at the college level.

Do you think the Broncos run game gets overlooked? How difficult is that for a defense to plan against?

COACH KELLY: I don't think it gets overlooked by us. I think obviously the notoriety goes to Peyton and the receivers. They're running the ball very effectively. Doesn't matter whether which back is in there, [Montee] Ball, [Ronnie] Hillman, Knowshon [Moreno]. They're still running the same plays.

It's not like they have a package just for this guy and they're featuring these certain type of players. Seems like they're running their game, doesn't matter who the back is.

When we defend them or we're defending everybody, we're looking at everything. There may be more stories written about the passing game, which is understandable. I know our defensive coaches are not saying, let's not worry about the run game, let's concentrate on the pass.

For Riley Cooper, was the one drop the over the shoulder throw, was that the drop?

COACH KELLY: The one on the sideline.

A defensive player who takes a bad angle, is that technique or instincts?

COACH KELLY: What's the play?

You look at a given play. I can't tell you hypothetically. I could say yes to both. It's instincts.

The third and 15, back sitting up on the five against the Chiefs – to Donnie Avery.

COACH KELLY: They were blocked. I said it the other day. They ran it twice. University of Houston has been running the play since 2005. It was a really good play. The biggest thing is we didn't get off of blocks. The Broncos actually ran the same play the other night, receivers didn't block anybody, so the Raiders get off the block. It's being able to disengage and get off the block.

Your tight ends have been thrown to 15 times in three games. How do you get them involved more in a passing game?

COACH KELLY: We have plays designed for the tight ends. I mean, right now we're not sitting in our offensive staff room saying we're not getting a lot of production offensively. I think we're running the ball very effectively and throwing the ball very effectively.

The Broncos have given up 43 yards rushing per game. Why do you think that's the case?

COACH KELLY: A lot of times teams end up playing from behind. All of a sudden it turns into you're playing the game of catch up. They're so productive on the offensive side of the ball, after two series, it's 14 0. Now you're trying to think of how do we hold serve and stay with them.

I also think Jack [Del Rio] does a great job with that defense. Their defense doesn't get enough credit. They have a very stout defensive line that holds up very well. They have three linebackers that can run and close to the football.

They always seem to be around the ball. They have a good scheme in terms of what they do. I think a lot of teams end up getting in that catch up mode when you're playing against such a productive offense, they're throwing the ball a lot more.

With what happened on Thursday, did you emphasize any more about turnovers this week?

COACH KELLY: We emphasize it every day. I don't think it's one thing whether you have zero in a game or five in a game, hey, all of a sudden we're going to pay attention to this now.

It's the hallmark of what you do offensively. Can you hold onto the football when it's given to you before the play? You don't win in this league, in high school, Pop Warner, college, whatever, if you're turning the football turnover. It's not like all of a sudden we turned the football over, we should talk about it. We talk about ball security on a daily basis.

I know there were some cases against Kansas City where Todd Herremans had miscommunication. Todd got beat on one on one matchups. San Diego, you had a couple. Where are you at with Todd?

COACH KELLY: Very confident in Todd.

Is he healthy?

COACH KELLY: Is Todd healthy? Yes.

You're leaving Saturday for the Denver game. What is your approach to the whole jetlag thing? When will you be leaving for the West Coast to play Oakland?

COACH KELLY: We'll leave the day before the game. We'll leave on Saturday. Jetlag doesn't affect you because of the time of the kick. It's a 4:25 kick. We just stay on East Coast time. I think where it does affect you, it really affects you when you're going [west to east]. All of a sudden when you're going to play, it's a 1:00 kick, which is a 10:00 kick. The pregame meal is four hours earlier. So the pregame meal is at 6:00. You're getting up at 5:00.

When we've gone to play in different in time zones, you're only in there for a certain amount of time, it takes you about a week to get acclimated. We'll stay on an East Coast time schedule when we go out there. The game is kicked off at 4:25. It shouldn't affect us from that point.

Do you need to get more production out of your other receiver position so teams don’t key in on DeSean Jackson so much?

COACH KELLY: I think when you look at a receiver, he can't do anything else except when the ball is thrown to him catch it. He doesn't throw the ball.

Is DeSean getting targeted more? Yeah. But he's a very talented player. There's a reason that DeSean has gotten targeted more. You look at the numbers he's put up, how people are trying to defend you, all those other things.

When you're looking at this whole thing, at the end of the day, you only have one football. Do we give it to LeSean [McCoy], DeSean. Again, I don't see many problems with our offense except we're turning the ball over. I don't see people saying we're not having production from this thing because we're just targeting one guy.

Where does separation factor into that in getting open? How do you value that?

COACH KELLY: Are you serious with that question? That's a real part of it. If you're not separated, you're not open.

One of the reasons Riley hasn't been getting more plays...

COACH KELLY: Not every play is designed to go to Riley.

Is he getting enough separation?

COACH KELLY: Yes. I think he did a good job of getting off releases in the Chargers game. Where are we going with the football, what is the play call. The ball may be going to the right.